Introduction to Development: Concept and Paradigms

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Introduction to Development: Concept and Paradigms!

Change is the law of nature, Society, polity, economy, geography and culture – all undergo a ceaseless process of change. All structural categories like caste, family and market and cultural categories like customs, traditions, values, ideologies, art and artifacts come under this process. Development, progress and evolution are different concepts to denote different modes of change.

Some changes are self-propelled and perfunctory and others intended, planned and pursued. Changes in the structure and culture of society are largely of evolutionary nature. However, the traditional normative patterns are not completely displaced. Factors of change in society are both endogenous as well as exogenous.

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The changes other than the planned and intended ones are essentially value-free and their direction and nature are self-determined. Changes in the structural domains like caste, family, polity and bureaucracy and the changes in cultural domains like style of life, values and attitudes towards rituals and religious practices, nation and nationality, traditions and customs are examples of socio-cultural changes in society. Development, on the other hand, is a planned change in the material conditions and related socio-cultural milieu.

The concept of development, like modernization, appeared in academic writings only after the second quarter of the 20th century when scholars became attentive to the problems of development in Asian, African and Latin American countries which became independent one after the other and set out on the path of planned growth of their economies.

The scholars, keeping in mind the conditions of these so-called Third World countries, arrived at the conclusion that the problems of devel­opment in the developing countries were more non-economic than economic.

It was also realized that these colonial countries were not moving fast on the path of development because of their inhibitive social and cultural conditions. It was conceived that the cause of the sluggish pace of their development was not necessarily the dearth of capital, labour, technology and raw material but the tradition-bound social structure and culture. Max Weber and W. Kapp have held that the Hindu religion and caste system were responsible for the slow pace of development in India.

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However, this view may not be accepted without reser­vation. Since caste and occupation were traditionally linked with each other through religion, social and occupational mobility has been to a very limited extent.

However, occupational mobility in Indian society has never been absolutely absent as opined by the Western writers. Keeping in view all these points, it may be safely said that certain structural and cultural conditions have definitely played a crucial role in the inhibited state of devel­opment in India.